Gaining on You

In my ongoing effort to bring you occasional snarky comments on the Race to the Bottom in American Commerce, I ran across a story that represents a new low in the field of debt collection, an industry whose standards are none too high to begin with. Sometimes I think I should start up a blog specifically for the purpose of documenting these brain cramps, but let’s face it, I don’t have enough time to write this blog, let alone start another one. As much fun as it would be to write a blog called “Race to the Bottom” I’m not sure anyone would read it, and it’s a near certainty that the people who actually need to consider these issues wouldn’t. That said, there’s a fine line between “bad customer service” and “making terroristic threats” and the collections representative in this story seems to have pole-vaulted over it…

According to the story in the Santa Fe Reporter (man, how I love news aggregation sites!), a man in Las Cruces, New Mexico was getting harassing calls about a defaulted Verizon cell phone account, lost patience with the collections people, and hung up. He reports that the collections rep called him right back, said they knew where he lived, and threatened to blow up his house if he didn’t make good on the debt. This would have been upsetting enough by itself, but such conduct violates Federal collections law, as well as assault laws and possibly RICO. There’s also the fact that, according to the court documents, it wasn’t even his cell phone – the account belonged to a relative…

Now, I know as well as anybody that you can’t believe everything you read in the paper – or see on the Internet. But if the plaintiff in our story is making this up he’s just committed perjury by filing the court case (and swearing to these allegations in writing), which is a heck of a long way to go just to prank (or scam) a giant corporation that won’t be threatened by this action even if he does win. More to the point, perhaps, there is an excellent chance that Verizon itself isn’t behind this – most likely they sold the debt to some other financial institution, just the way banks sell car loans to GMAC and so on. Whoever bought the account then turned it over to the cheapest collections agency they could find, on the principle that if you buy debt for a few cents on the dollar and collect even ten percent of it you can make a huge profit. In fact, I’d be willing to bet cash that no one at Verizon even knew this was going on until the news story hit. But that’s exactly why I’m calling the story to your attention…

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis (assuming anyone does) has already heard me going on about how customer service is your first and sometimes only point of contact with the customer – and your lowest paid, least well trained personnel are therefore holding your entire relationship in their unmotivated hands whenever they pick up the phone. In Verizon’s case, the collections agents working for whoever they sold their debt accounts to have no reason to worry how they make the company look; any legal action will be directed back at Verizon, not at the collections agency or even the purchasing institution. Verizon may be insulated from the legal ramifications – although that’s not a guarantee; it depends on the nature of the sale agreement – but even if they are, it’s another bit of bad press for a company that doesn’t need any more of it…

So to all of the companies we’ve occasionally made fun of in this space for their laughably poor customer service and PR, and especially the ones who are screwing themselves without ever realizing, I can honestly say, you’d best think up some new forms of idiocy – because Verizon is gaining on you…